The Lausanne Global Conversation is on the World Wide Open Network
The Lausanne Movement is a worldwide movement that mobilizes evangelical leaders to collaborate together for world evangelization. Given the evangelical, inclusive, interdenominational nature of the Lausanne Movement, translation should show neither bias nor jargon of any given church denomination other than that explicitly mentioned in the source text.
Tone of voice
The Lausanne Movement tone of voice is clean, semi-formal but inclusive and factual (rather than bubbly, emotional). Most content will include theological reflection and/or strategic action. For this reason, the tone, which should transfer to the target text should be that of providing a strong biblical basis, thought-leadership, inclusiveness, empowerment and motivation. Official papers from Lausanne will tend to be more authoritative and formal than other content. As the Lausanne Global Conversation is driven by active participation, its style reflects that of its broad community and is therefore in parts very human, fresh and natural.
Conservative but leading edge
The Lausanne Movement is in a unique position as a highly respected movement by both historically established church orders and non-traditional believers around the world. For this reason, the register used must always share a fine line between traditional (but not archaic) and contemporary.
Conversations
Volunteer translators should emulate the feel of the participant conversation rather than officially represent The Lausanne Movement. Translations should convey the tone of the source text, whether spontaneous, directive or formal.
Lausanne branded terms
In efforts of consistency, please always translate Lausanne branded terms (Lausanne Global Conversation, Lausanne Movement, Cape Town 2010) into your language using the officially used translation terms. Official Lausanne branded terms, which all have accepted equivalents are:
Lausanne Covenant, Lausanne Movement, Cape Town 2010, Lausanne Global Conversation
The same applies for LGC specific terms, all of which have a chosen equivalent in the 8 site languages. Some examples are:
Conversation, themes, topics, people, churches or specific topic names.
A full list of translations in 8 languages will be available soon. Please use the language found in the Advance Papers in the meantime.
Punctuation
Always use the target language's native punctuation.
Proper nouns
If the source language uses a non-Latin alphabet, please transliterate into a Latin alphabet instead of translating it. If the proper noun exists in a Latin alphabet, please use its original form. Example: 小李 should be written using the Latin alphabet: Xiao Li, whereas a mention of John Stott in a non Latin source text should be kept as “John Stott” in the target text.
Titles
When titles of articles, magazines, books are mentioned, please first verify whether or not they have been translated into your language. If there isn’t a translation in your language, please first list the original title in italics followed by your most accurate translation in brackets. Example: Accountability and Church in the 21st century (La responsabilisation et l’Eglise au 21ème siècle).
Source text mistakes
It is not uncommon for user submitted content to contain grammatical or spelling mistakes, or typos. Translation should always feature correct phrasing and grammar, but should never take the liberty to rearrange sections in the attempts to achieve better congruence.
Units of measurement
Please convert units of measurement to contextualize them for your language group. We recommend the Google unit conversion tool.
Idioms
In most cases, idioms, jokes, puns, culture-specific phrasing, metaphorical expressions should not be translated word for word. Rather, an equivalent or similar expression should be found and used as a substitution. If no such equivalent can be found, translators should opt for the translation that readers will find the least confusing, even if it is less colorful than the original.